From: Daniel Fabulich (daniel.fabulich@yale.edu)
Date: Fri Jun 12 1998 - 20:18:26 MDT
On Fri, 12 Jun 1998, Ian Goddard wrote:
> IAN: I understand what you. But the photon
> reaches you at the same instant it was emitted
> because that instant travels at 186,000 mps.
Only from the photon's reference frame; not from my own.
> Your "instant" is the same across the universe.
> If we say that right now a photon is emitted
> from a point 20 ly away, we are applying a "now"
> that is uniform across the universe, and which
> is universal time. If we say that the instant
> travels with the photon, we say that when the
> photon strikes us, the "now" of its emission
> has reached us. Time travels at the SOL.
Yes, but the idea of "old photons" is not speaking to the point of
universal time, but only with respect to t=0 *in my reference frame*.
>From the perspective of everything with respect to everything else, yes,
it took no "net time," but it took time with respect to my reference
frame, and that's all I was trying to assert.
As for why my definition is better than your three laws? I posit that
THESE are the three laws of atomism:
1) A is A.
2) A is not both A and not-A with respect to 0.
3) A is either A or not-A with respect to 0.
Here I use "with respect to 0" to mean that the partial difference between
A and 0 is either A or not-A and not both. Ask anybody who claims to be
an atomist and they will agree with the laws as posited.
Why is my definition better? My definition is better because it is the
one most people use. "Atomism" means whatever people use it to mean, and
they happen to use it to mean that A is either A or not-A and not both
with respect to 0. The omission of "with respect to 0" from your statement
of the laws is trivial: it is implicit in everything that we do or say
that we are always referring to the partial difference, and never the
"whole" difference, when we talk about difference. (By we, I mean not
YOU, Ian, obviously.) No one defines "difference" the way you define
difference, Ian, and that's all there is to it. Atomism is right because
it uses different definitions than you do.
If I have allowed a bit of frustration to creep into this post, it is
purely because this argument SHOULD have ended years ago. Neither
atomists nor holists disagree with the laws I posit above. No
disagreement means that there's nothing to debate. Learn to love the
atomists: you've got us sorely misunderstood.
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